Dave Oleyar, Ph.D.

Director of Long-term Monitoring & Community Science

Dave Oleyar, Ph.D., joined HWI as Senior Scientist in November 2013. His road to being a raptor/avian enthusiast and wildlife population ecologist began at an early age while exploring the post oak forests near his family’s home outside of Dallas, Texas. He earned a BS in Biology at Baylor University in Waco, where he worked with Eastern Screech Owls and Red-Tailed Hawks. After Baylor, he studied the impacts of the 2002 Winter Olympics ski area development at Snowbasin Resort on the breeding ecology of Flammulated Owls for his MS degree in Raptor Biology at Boise State University. Dave earned his doctorate at the University of Washington studying how landscape level changes associated with urbanization impact songbird population dynamics and community structure around the Seattle area. Dave has worked with a variety of taxa and systems ranging from zoo- and phyto-plankton communities in artificial cattle tanks to plant, bird, and bat communities in the Piney woods of southeastern Texas to songbird and raptors in the Great Basin and Pacific Northwest. Central to all Dave’s work is understanding how the patterns humans create in both wild and human dominated settings influence the animals we share these spaces with.

Dave comes to HWI after teaching upper level undergraduate courses in population ecology and conservation biology in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Science at the University of Idaho for the past 3 years. He loves sharing his passion for ecology and conservation with others whether it is in the classroom, at a public talk or seminar, on a walk in the field, or over a pint at the local watering hole. Spending time with friends (both two and four-legged varieties) is important to Dave, and he also enjoys hiking, camping, rafting, fishing, snowboarding, reading, playing old-school Atari 2600 games and disc golfing.